[Ads-l] pig butchering

[Baker, John]

One might think that, but apparently it’s a calque from Chinese.  From the Shanghai Daily, Dec. 19, 2019 (NewsBank):

“China's National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center unveiled the top 10 media buzzwords in 2019.

The buzzwords together encapsulate new phenomena and changes over the past year, according to the center.

Among the list are "nighttime economy," "epoch-making year of 5G," "apple-polishing chat group," "Bing Dwen Dwen and Shuey Rhon Rhon," "bucolic brands" and "pig-butchering scam."

The top 10 words and expressions were selected by an algorithm based on a corpus of 1 billion Chinese characters collected from publications of nine print media outlets, 20 broadcasting or television stations and four news websites between January 1 and November 30, 2019, said the center, adding that the final results were confirmed by its staff.

. . . .

Shazhu pan, or 'pig-butchering scam'

"Pig-butchering scam" is used for a new type of online fraud in which scammers attempt to win the trust of victims through a romantic relationship before tricking them into a gambling or financing trap. The expression derives its name from how a butcher slaughters a pig after it is fattened.”


The article includes the Chinese characters, which I omit because I don’t want to mess up listserv formatting.


John Baker


From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> On Behalf Of Dan Goncharoff
Sent: Sunday, July 2, 2023 6:43 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: pig butchering

External Email - Think Before You Click


To me it's a reference to "bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get
slaughtered".

On Sun, Jul 2, 2023, 11:46 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com<mailto:wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>>
wrote:

>
> https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trance-tech-executive-got-scammed-183000490.html<https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trance-tech-executive-got-scammed-183000490.html>
>
> JL
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org<http://www.americandialect.org>
>

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